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Good morning everyone!
I thought we’d relax a little today, and explore a game collection, especially for those who enjoy the word game genre. Word games are actually one of my favorites (English Major 
and I couldn’t wait to plunge into what I hoped were new and original games for the wordsmith!
Word games are often my choice during the late evening, when I want to wind down for the day. It’s usually not long before my eyes begin to droop and I know that I’m ready for bed.
Title: Word Challenge Extreme 1.0
Publisher: Alawar Entertainment
Supported Languages: English
System Requirements: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista
Additional Requirements: None
Tested on: Windows XP Pro.
Today’s software offers a bonus, in that it’s actually four games in one. While the publishers don’t claim that the games are original, there are hundreds of ways you could construct word games and I found myself hoping for at least a new twist on some older games.
However, having read the documentation before playing, I could see that none of them were original at all, no twists, nada. Having said that, – I will admit that they are long time favorites of a few children and even adults who played them as children.
Graphics:
They truly are nothing to write home about, in fact I’d have to say that it’s the weakest attempt at graphics that I’d ever seen. While I don’t see any particular anti-aliasing or other issues with the images, they are ordinary and very basic. It’s as if the the graphics designer thought that the game design wasn’t worth his work.
Music:
Extremely repetitive. I knew within a minute or so that I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on a word game with it playing. It was definitely going to be turned off!
Opening Screen:
Knowing that there are several games in the package, I took a look at the titles that were available in the package. For the benefit of those that happen to be new to these games (is that even possible!?!? I’ll also give a brief description of each:
- Word Jumble - Out of a jumble of words in the grid, see how many words you can make out of the letters shown;
- Word Whiz – This is similar to Word Jumble, except that you can only make words by connecting adjacent letters together.
- Hunt a Word – Word search in any direction – find the words in the grid that appear in the left column;
- Hungman (not a spelling error;) Same as Hangman, except that you look for an invisible word, instead of a topical word.
Ok .. So you recognize these games, who wouldn’t? Well let’s give them a run and a fair chance for the sake of this review shall we?
Options:
Incredibly, the sliders for the music and sound volumes are fixed. The user cannot alter them in any way from within the game! So if you want the music to be on but softer, the only way you can lower the volume is to:
- Adjust your speakers;
- Adjust with the icon in your tray, or;
- For those who have the Logitech ergonomic keyboards (fabulous!) use the volume + or - or even the mute button;
- There are the also the normal toggles for full screen/window mode;
- Allow word input – the default is mouse;
- Show game tips.
There is also a display of the ‘Word Count’ which shows in my game as 28133. I’m not quite sure what the significance of this number is yet and I haven’t found any reference to it in any documentation.
Help Files
The help files are brief and to the point. Not that any of us probably need to be taught how to play any of these games! There are four separate help files, one within each game; which I think is better than having one help file for all four games.
Features:
Saves your progress till the next game;
Negatives:
The game doesn’t recognize some simple words and I found myself continually having to get rid of my letters in order to try with another word;
The online documentation says that the game supports custom word lists (which would help with the above point,) however- I have not been able to find any reference to this within the word game;
Navigation around the games is definitely not intuitive.
Points:
- Originality: 0/5
- Functionality: 3/5
- Intuitiveness: 3/5
- Fun Factor: 3/5
Price: USD$39.95
I could never see myself paying this price for four word games that were created between the 1950s and early 1980s. Not to mention that ALL these games can be played on a piece of paper and would cost the players zip!
When you hold this software up against a compendium of word games such as Babel http://swan-reviews-almost-everything.blogspot.com/2007/08/babel.html (25 word games – $20.00!) which you can buy for USD#20.00, unfortunately Word Challenge Extreme doesn’t even compare.
Summary:
I would have said that this game would suit younger children, but the difficulty does rise quickly and therefore not appropriate. However, if you have a younger child with a pretty good vocabulary, this might be ok for them.
As a game for adults, the game fails miserably. With the very ordinary graphics and nothing brought to the old game play, I can’t imagine any adult being entertained for more than a few scant minutes and I certainly don’t see them coming back for more.
Recommendation:
This game is not recommended, certainly not until the game designer grows into his profession a little more. I got the feeling that he/she is fresh out of game designer school (what is it called?) and just wanted to test the waters before doing anything more to the game.
If you did happen to want to test it out for yourself today, you can pick up a free fully licensed and registered copy with my good friends over at Giveaway of the Day. However you only have the next few hours to download the software. http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/
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Till next time gamers!
~ Swan
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“The day will come when machines and software will tell us whom to know; what to eat; what to wear; when to go to work and what profession to pursue; when to sleep; what entertainments to enjoy and with whom to have any kind of relationship. It can’t be avoided and you will succumb.”
~ Swan (2005)
Posted by ~ Swan 